Pentagon Reopening Afghan Jet Fuel Contract

A US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt from Bagram airbase receives fuel from a KC-10 tanker over Afghanistan in June 2009. (Photo: US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Jason Robertson)

The Pentagon is launching a new solicitation for deliveries of jet fuel via pipeline to Bagram air base, the chief US air hub in Afghanistan.

Red Star, a fuel supply company that is a subject of a US Congressional investigation into contracting practices in both Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, has held the fuel-by-pipeline contract at Bagram since 2007. According to the US government’s Federal Procurement Data System, the contract is worth $1.2 billion. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].

Sources in Washington, DC, say that while contracting practices in Kyrgyzstan will remain an important aspect of the congressional investigation, they say Red Star’s contracts in Afghanistan will be subject to immense scrutiny.